Mount Fuji

Seeing Mount Fuji on the way back to Kyoto, we decided, would be the ultimate cap to an already fantastic trip to Tokyo. All we had to do was catch the 6am train out of Tokyo station, and we were in business...with plenty of time to get back home.

These plans always sound great the day before. When the alarm goes off at a quarter to five in the morning, however, it's an entirely different story. I somehow managed to make myself believe that I heard cars squelching through wet streets outside of our hotel.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"What?"

"It's raining. We'll never see Fuji. Let's sleep." I suggested helpfully.

"For sure." Laura replied enthusiastically, altogether unwilling to pry herself from the tiny bed across the room.

And so we slept. Late. As it was, we had to hurry to check out in time, and I was relieved after checking the train schedule that we could still make it to Kyoto on time if we hurried and caught the next train out of Tokyo.

The day, when we finally emerged, was gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky. Nota trace of moisture on the streets. A sleepy mind is a funny thing. We barely made it to our train after stocking up at a bakery near our hotel, and before we knew it we were heading not so quickly out of Tokyo on the first of a number of local trains. I was rather proud of having found an unsually quick route home with a minimal number of transfers...but it was not meant to be.

Laura spotted Fuji. It was those damn foreigners we had met on New Year's Eve, talking incessantly about the beautiful and ever-changing face of Fuji-san had done their work all too well. Laura's imagination was captivated now, and I could tell by her longing looks out of the train window that she was desperate to get off the train.

I became immediately flustered. What about my brilliant coup de grace, my skillfully timed schedule home? It was after only a few minutes of blustering that I realized that I was carrying on like an old man who's afraid of 'not making good time home'. Here we were about to hurtle past the most enduring icon of Japan on one of the most uncommonly clear days imaginable and I was fretting about catching the 12:08 out of Atemi "because it caught up with the Nagoya express perfectly."

So we got off. The day was, of course, totally worth it. It turns out that we were extraordinarily lucky to have been able to see Fuji from where we were in Hakone, as it is particularly rare these days to have such a smog-free day. I won't mention the fact that Laura's rapidly increasing desire to view Fuji from every possible angle left us within - with absolutely no exaggeration - 30 seconds of missing the last possible train back to Kyoto. The charm of the day was wearing off very rapidly as we imagined sleeping outside some backwater station in sub-zero weather.

Fuji was spectacular, and seeing it both from a cable car and from a boat out on the lake was truly incredible.